I would also suggest cutting the temperature back 25-50 degrees. Try 25 first, and if still too much, then go with 50. My oven also cooks a little hot and I set it 25 degrees less than what the recipe calls for. Also, you can cover the crust of pies with aluminum foil to keep it from getting too dark while the rest of pie cooks. hth

Did you check to see if both elements are working? I was getting things burnt on top when the bottom element of my oven went flakey. The top element would crank up to make up the difference to get it to temperature, burning everything in the process (actually, burnt on top, cold in the middle). I think they are cheap to replace.

Do you have a thermometer to put inside to see the actual temperature? My oven at our old house was about 75º hot, I just ignored the oven settings and bought a thermometer for it.

Try going to your ovens manufacturers page. They usally have a help section or a contact us section. Tell them your problem along with the make and model of your oven. You'll find that infomation on a silver tag. They maye able to tell you how to adjust your thomstat. Some sotve/ovens have adjustment screws under the knobs.You pull off the control knob and adjust the tem by truning the scre either one way or the other. Also do check your elements as thats also a comon problem of one going out and the other making up the differecne. They are very easy to replace.

thanks everyone. I guess if it was an even temperature all the time I wouldn't mind. But one day it bakes hot, the next it bakes cold. Add to that the hot and cold spots and, well, I'm ready to chuck it in for a new stove. I think we'll take the fire bricks out of it that we used initially to even out the heat and see if that helps. If not, we'll investigate further. Thanks for the aluminum foil idea! It's on my plan.